05-VIII-1973.: Back together
Around the house all day, unpacking. In the evening nobody on štrafta, just Hazim and his confused chick. Buzzed with them a bit, then went to Dom, casting brooding looks around. And my heart just dies on the spot: there she is! Beautiful as always, the fragrance to faint from, everything.
Approached her, kissed, happy to have found her. It didn't go quite smoothly, my moustache was getting in the way and she said I look older with a beard. (... 99 words...)
Rudolf sent a Donovan album to Sneca and Veca, which the postman folded to fit into the postbox (he sent another one, later, with all the „pazi krhak!“* warnings, and it was delivered in one piece; possibly the had a few words with the postman meanwhile). I got Orwell's "Animal farm", the book (also „1984“, which made me ill for weeks, until I found the hole in its armor). Franc from Varaždin wrote.
Vanji dropped by, says he's founding an art group, invites me in. On thursday (9th) I went to the hospital to see her. At the ward window (ground floor, luckily) I met oma and tanti, finally got officially acquainted. They left us to be alone the last fifteen minutes. Mariška and the other two also came by, briefly. We just stood there, didn't talk much, just looked at each other, happy to be together. She looked somewhat tortured. Said she'll be out on saturday.
She wasn't there on saturday, so Gavra and I shook it out, dancing on the terrace of Dom, and on sunday (12th, birthday of Tejka) she wasn't there, and on monday when we went to see Pa šta onda(k). Did the pictures on tuesday. Vanji is persuading me to make an exhibition.
Finally met her on wednesday, 15th. Happy to be just together. Turns out oma even liked me, and her dad pretends disinterest. She gave me cigarettes to keep. The matches I burned on the way back, all at once, as per old habit.
(this is mom, mixing up the paint; on top picture, uncle Staja is fixing the rear entrance door, which started rotting in places; in turn, dad and I worked something around his trabant; the shiny thing behind mom is the vineyard spray pump, which we tried to use to speed up the painting, but no, this is earth paint and the powder clogs the nozzle, brushes don't have that problem)
Painting the house the next two days. Hair arrived: Bruno cut his hair, and sent a handful to my mom, to make a pin cushion (as she mocked him that way). Bathroom dark blue, their bedroom pink, later the kitchen brick-orange and the dining yellow. Dad redeveloped a syndrome of me being with no skills at all, he doesn't even like it how I hold the brush. And he was always the pinnacle of trade pedagogy... never knew to explain the why of any of those right and wrong ways. His main skill is to know how to say that I'm doing it wrong.
Saturday, 18th. With her. I felt like going anywhere but disco, she opposite. So okay, disco first. Mad at lack of matches, though I managed to regularly acquire inflammation (v. house dictionary) every time. Won't let me kiss her eye, lots of work on the makeup invested. I manage to sneak one quick kiss, she gets really mad and goes to Sleš for a light. She's gone for a while, and I already think I shat the I shat up and it's never going to be like before. She returns but keeps mum. After a while she notices how low my spirits are, and kisses me gently on the cheek, so sweetly that it all passed in an instant. "You're wonderful. You're either strongly good, or you know me too well. Just when I think all my ships sank, you just kiss me so that everything is righted all of a sudden", which I accented with a hug, a kiss... And there I sense a few hints of a sweet near future. We set to get heavily drunk on Mariška's birthday, tomorrow. Should have been today but some wedding got in the way.
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* „krhak“ is a straight translation of „fragile“, wrong on two counts: the proper word is „lomljivo“ (breakable) and it should not be in masculine gender, but rather in neutral, as one doesn't really know what's inside.
Mentions: Bruno Kessler, Dom omladine, Gavrilo Taroški (Gavra), Hazim Jabučin, house dictionary, Mika Zelenić (Sleš), oma, Rudolf Ochsner, Slavica Tejin (Tejka), Snežana Stojanović (Sneca), štrafta, tanti, trabant, uncle Staja, Vera Stojanović (Veca), Vilmoš Baranji (Vanji), in serbian